John Richardson

[FISHY1118]

Interesting post overnight , lots of good points of view .

[Herlock Sholmes]

Irrelevant question in relation to the topic being discussed [answered anyway just for the hell of it, ]

So a question about how we assess witness testimony is irrelevant in a discussion on assessing witness testimony.

You’re a genius Fishy.

[Doctored Whatsit]

Hi Doc,

I agree with you, and I want to make it clear that I was reporting a contempory report, not making a judgement statement of my own.

Cheers, George

Yes, I realise that, George. My comment was really an expression of total astonishment at the rubbish that Star journalists could write. A child would have realised his report was nonsense. One wonders about the accuracy of other points featured in articles by that writer!

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

I am in agreement with most of your post, but would like to add some comments.

We find ourselves in a situation where most of the official records are unavailable to us, either lost, missing or destroyed. The harsh fact is that it is now a matter of press reports or nothing.

Looking at what I have posted above, I don't see much sensationalising in those reports. I see a danger in reading into reports what the subject of the report "could" have meant, or what we may think they meant. We are really not entitled to assume anything beyond what is reported unless it is directly contradicted elsewhere. To do so is indulging in pure conjecture. (IMO)

Many, many posts ago I referenced a report on the unreliability of witness testimony. That report had the advantage of video records to establish a baseline of the truth of what actually happened against what witness were sure had happened. I recall that report suggesting that the mind tends to tamper with the memory as time proceeds from the actual incident. As a consequence I tend to assess the initial statements of witnesses as having a higher likelihood of reflecting the truth than what they may say in a few days when their mind has had a chance to tamper with their memories.

I tend to consider what Richardson told Chandler early on the morning of the 6th to be the most probable. I also find Cadosch's original single visit to the Loo to be more convincing than the amended version to which he testified a week later, even though it is less supportive of my opinions.

I still rate Doc's assessment of Phillip's statement as the best. While it favours the earlier ToD, it doesn't exclude the later ToD. Even if I discounted all the medical evidence, I still consider the preponderance of evidence leans slightly towards the earlier ToD, but I acknowledge that in that opinion I am part of a small minority, but am not unduly concerned about that fact.

Best regards, George

Hi George,

I agree for the most part. Witness testimony is fraught with complications due to memory distortions that can occur. Fine details in particular are prone to such annoying influences. Many examples can be found, for example, where witnesses describe things like seeing a blue car, when the car was some other colour. Things like time, which arise in this case, are another aspect that can be suspect (both the time on the clock and time in the sense of durations - i.e. 5 minutes later this happened).

On the other hand, the distortions that get introduced due to the context of the "telling" are also important to consider. Talking with a reporter is a very different situation than talking with the police, and making contact with the police (i.e. Richardson's contact with Chandler) will be different from giving a formal statement when the police will be interviewing and asking probing questions for detail.

We see quite often in the JtR cases how the initial reports in the press tend to include things that are later overturned, found to be "not quite right" and so forth. I think that reflects a combination of things, and I'm not sure the later details (like Cadosche's two loo visits) are likely to be memory changes but simply reflect that all the details have not yet come out. On the other hand, I agree that one has to consider memory distortions as well. Memory distortions can, in fact, be introduced by the interview process itself, something that would have been relatively unknown in 1888. Modern research into how interview technique can distort witness's memories from the 1970s and onwards has shown how subtle wording of a question can influence things. For example, if the interviewer asks "Did you see the broken headlight?" vs "Did you see a broken headlight?" then they will get more "Yes" responses to the first question than the second even though there was no broken headlight at all! And, those witnesses asked the first question will later pick an image with a broken headlight as being what they saw more than those asked the second.

All of these things come into play, which is why we have to expect there to be some conflict in the details when comparing the testimonies of two witnesses both describing the same event. I try and look at the various sources and work out what aspects seem fairly consistent overall.

I personally view the earliest press reports with the most suspicion, which I think differs from you. Again, that's because I think the earliest reports tend to reflect the need for the press to get the story out as soon as possible, and so many of the details have not yet come out. Things like going to the loo twice, while critical for us to know, are the sorts of details that are not going to be considered important by the press at the time. They want to report on how this fellow (Cadosche of course) might have actually heard the murder taking place - they don't care if he went to the loo once, twice, thrice, etc, the news worthy bit is he possibly heard Annie and JtR talking in the yard, and later may have heard aspects of the crime (the fence noise). On the other hand, the police will be very interested in those fine details - what time were you in the yard? What were you doing between the time you heard the voices and the time you heard the fence noise? and so forth. Many things that are unimportant to the press are going to be important to the police, and the details the police would have been interested in are also the ones we are interested in. Hence the discussions on how many times did Cadosche go to the loo, and what did he do? Did he urinate, defecate, vomit? Those take different amounts of time, and we probably would like to know how long he was in the loo as well as how many times he went, and what time was it when he went each time, and so forth. That's hardly going to be front page material though.

Anyway, many of our different leanings tend to boil down to our different personal weightings of the information we have available to us.

- Jeff

[FISHY1118]

So a question about how we assess witness testimony is irrelevant in a discussion on assessing witness testimony.

You’re a genius Fishy.

Oh so you changed the question ? , i thought we we doing Bromley ?? Oh well you will change your mind from post to post, im used to it by now. . .


As far as how we assess witness testimony goes ,Jesus H Christ what have we all being doing for 4500 post ??? please will you pay attention .

Im a genius alright , but your just plain out there buddy .

Do you have anything ''New'' regarding the inquest testimony thats worth while discussing in relation to t.o.d that hasnt been covered like a 1000 times already ?

No ? Well then the evidence as it stands ,both medical and witness at this point in time cant determind an acurate t.o d .

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oh so you changed the question ? , i thought we we doing Bromley ?? Oh well you will change your mind from post to post, im used to it by now. . .


As far as how we assess witness testimony goes ,Jesus H Christ what have we all being doing for 4500 post ??? please will you pay attention .

Im a genius alright , but your just plain out there buddy .

Do you have anything ''New'' regarding the inquest testimony thats worth while discussing in relation to t.o.d that hasnt been covered like a 1000 times already ?

No ? Well then the evidence as it stands ,both medical and witness at this point in time cant determind an acurate t.o d .

I haven’t changed the question in the slightest. I’ve asked you the exact same question several times recently. I’ve also asked you that exact same question in the past and I have never….and I mean never……not once……received an answer. Of course this is typical behaviour with you. Your way of avoiding a question is to pretend that you’ve already answered it when you haven’t. Of course, you can never provide evidence for this and you’re quite happy to spend time making a silly response but you can’t spend the same amount of time to type an answer to the question. I respond to every question put to me. If I don’t know something I’ll say that I don’t know. You just duck and dive.

[FISHY1118]

I haven’t changed the question in the slightest. I’ve asked you the exact same question several times recently. I’ve also asked you that exact same question in the past and I have never….and I mean never……not once……received an answer. Of course this is typical behaviour with you. Your way of avoiding a question is to pretend that you’ve already answered it when you haven’t. Of course, you can never provide evidence for this and you’re quite happy to spend time making a silly response but you can’t spend the same amount of time to type an answer to the question. I respond to every question put to me. If I don’t know something I’ll say that I don’t know. You just duck and dive.

Now your just becoming boring , and repetitive . Every question youve ever asked regarding t.od has been commented on and reponded by myself and other posters many times over thousands of post since this topic was started. Theres only so many way you can skin a cat [gods knows you have invented 100s] . You just havent accepted the possible outcome/s that disagree with your opinion.

Ill say it again,just like the rest of us, all you have is an ''Opinion'' regarding t.o.d based on the evidence. The same evidence also supports a different conclusion in the ''Opinion'' of myself and many others ,as has been shown already numerous time i might add.

[The Rookie Detective]

Herlock Vs Fishy is really heating up...

I make it 3-3 at the moment..with 6 home goals conceded already...

All we need now is for someone to drop the "Lechmere" bomb on this thread, to get Fisherman involved, and the odd remark about THAT diary...and I think this thread could then hit 10000 posts by Halloween.

It's all for a good cause though.


So...Lechmere and Maybrick...did they work together as a team?


Anyone?


ha ha


RD

[Herlock Sholmes]

Herlock Vs Fishy is really heating up...

I make it 3-3 at the moment..with 6 home goals conceded already...

All we need now is for someone to drop the "Lechmere" bomb on this thread, to get Fisherman involved, and the odd remark about THAT diary...and I think this thread could then hit 10000 posts by Halloween.

It's all for a good cause though.


So...Lechmere and Maybrick...did they work together as a team?


Anyone?


ha ha


RD

3-3?

Fishy hasn’t made one single valid point.

6-0 to me. And if you count previous discussions it’s about 1000-0 to me.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Now your just becoming boring , and repetitive . Every question youve ever asked regarding t.od has been commented on and reponded by myself and other posters many times over thousands of post since this topic was started. Theres only so many way you can skin a cat [gods knows you have invented 100s] . You just havent accepted the possible outcome/s that disagree with your opinion.

Ill say it again,just like the rest of us, all you have is an ''Opinion'' regarding t.o.d based on the evidence. The same evidence also supports a different conclusion in the ''Opinion'' of myself and many others ,as has been shown already numerous time i might add.

I prefer honesty. I never duck a question. Unlike you.

The point that I made was absolutely valid and important in countering your appalling logic. So I’ll ask again, if you say that you’ve answered then your simply lying…….

Is it your belief that if a person makes two separate points, for one of which he admits to a level of uncertainty but for the other he’s absolutely certain, we should assume uncertainty for the second point?

Come on Fishy, surely you aren’t afraid to make a point that you haven’t simply taken from someone else?

[Fleetwood Mac]

We were not there but the coroner was, and the coroner concluded he was being honest. Hence one of the reasons I lean towards a later time of death.

In the event you read Baxter's summing up, which I'd imagine you have, it is mere repetition of that which was stated or what he thought was stated. Baxter was a lawyer and there's no questioning nor challenging from him. He simply repeated what he heard, joining up a load of accounts into one. Whether or not Baxter believed anyone about anything, is worthless.

As I have said, I'm not opposed to an earlier ToD, but I would appreciate an explanation of how the Ripper's masterful dissection of Chapman was affected without any light.

I'd imagine that any reasonable person knows it's simply an opinion built upon the available information. You do have a few zealots on here who cannot entertain any idea other than their theory to which they are wedded but to the rest of us, all possibilities are open to being the right one. It's simply a case of when you take all of the information into account, which TOD appears most likely. It doesn't make that estimate a nigh on certainty by any stretch of the imagination.

There is competing information. On this one, I would take the doctor over the witnesses, given the information left by the doctor, and what we know of Annie's movements; and Annie's stomach contents. 'Could be wrong, but it seems the most likely to me.

The masterful dissection? The person who stated the killer had 'surgical skill' also believed that Annie was dead by half four at the latest. It follows that the person who stated 'surgical skill' believed it was possible when it was dark.

A point that more than likely hasn't been discussed much at all, if ever, is human sight in darkness. We know that human beings do have night vision. We know also that human night vision is enabled when we've adjusted our eyes to darkness, i.e. when we've been in darkness for a while. Night vision works outdoors because it's never completely dark, there's always light creeping in from somewhere. The only place where you are in complete darkness is probably a cave or something like that, and human eyes are no good in that scenario. I'm going to try out it tonight. 'Stand outside where it's pitch-black 'round the back for a while and let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and then see how far I can see in front of me.

Try it yourself.

You may conclude that Jack's eyes, adjusted to the darkness, could see decent enough with poor Annie right in front of him but not much farther. You may conclude otherwise, I could do as I haven't tried it out yet.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I find it ironic to say the least when I (and others) can be labelled as ‘zealots’ because we:

“….cannot entertain any idea other than their theory to which they are wedded but to the rest of us, all possibilities are open to being the right one.”

This is coming from someone who, along with a few others, believe that their level of ‘knowledge’ allows them to gainsay the acknowledged experts on the subject. And let’s remind ourselves shall we? This isn’t a case of authorities with divided opinion; there are no ‘schools of thought’ on this issue. The authorities all tell us, and I do mean all, about the unreliability of the methods used by Phillips. There are no caveats on this subject saying ‘because the doctor saw the victim not long after death he was more likely to have been spot on.’ And yet the allegedly unbiased like FM think that this is misguided. All those experts clearly haven’t studied the subject for long enough. And yet those who favour a later ToD get labelled! You couldn’t make this up……follow what the authorities unanimously tell us and your being zealous!

I don’t favour a later ToD because I have a theory. I have no ‘theory.’ (Although it has to be stated that both Fisherman and Fishy favour theories for which an earlier ToD would be more than convenient.) I favour a later TOD because that’s where the evidence, viewed without bias, strongly points us.

1. A Doctor using provably unreliable methods which, although by no means excluding the possibility of him making a correct estimation, allows for a very reasonable and totally understandable possibility of inaccuracy.

2. A Doctor who adds a caveat to his ToD which due to the content can only have meant that he allowed for the possibility of a later ToD. And this is exactly how Coroner Baxter read it too.

3. The only three witness that have a bearing on the ToD all point overwhelmingly to a later ToD despite the heavy lifting that gets done to try and paint them as unreliable or worse still, as liars. How many cases can we name where we have all three witness, all entirely unconnected, all with no reason to lie, and all were mistaken or lying? What are the chances of that happening? Was there some kind of conspiracy going on? Look at the effort thats gone in to trying to discredit them. Look at the kind of ‘logic’ that gets used. Like Fishy’s classic. Cadosch admitted to uncertainty about the ‘No,’ but was absolutely certain about the noise against the fence. So because of the uncertainty about the ‘no’ we should dismiss the part about the noise. That’s what reason is up against.

And yet those that simply follow what the evidence overwhelmingly tells us get called zealots. I’m afraid that it shows what things are like in this subject these days. The fact that the evidence points overwhelmingly toward a later ToD is simply a fact.

[Hair Bear]

A point that more than likely hasn't been discussed much at all, if ever, is human sight in darkness. We know that human beings do have night vision. We know also that human night vision is enabled when we've adjusted our eyes to darkness, i.e. when we've been in darkness for a while. Night vision works outdoors because it's never completely dark, there's always light creeping in from somewhere. The only place where you are in complete darkness is probably a cave or something like that, and human eyes are no good in that scenario. I'm going to try out it tonight. 'Stand outside where it's pitch-black 'round the back for a while and let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and then see how far I can see in front of me.

Try it yourself.

You may conclude that Jack's eyes, adjusted to the darkness, could see decent enough with poor Annie right in front of him but not much farther. You may conclude otherwise, I could do as I haven't tried it out yet.

I tried this before and couldn't see my hand in front of my face at 3:30-4:00, although I was in the middle of a forest and that's different. I know it was 1888 but we are talking about London, so I would assume there is a measure of ambient light (how much is another matter). I also don't think it unreasonable that the Ripper carried some form of light, not that I'm 100% sold on that idea.

[Abby Normal]

the only time ive ever experienced true pitch black is in my basement at night. ive been camping alot and even in the middle of tje night in tje middle of nowhere theres always some ambient light from stars or moon even if its overcast. and certainly never pitch black outside in a city at night..theres always ambient light either from natural and or man made light. theres always a modicum of photons bouncing around.

[GBinOz]

I really like that video, and others by Lemmino. If anyone thinks that there's another general Ripper video on Youtube that's as good or better than the Lemmino one, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Hi Lewis C,

I think you might enjoy this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEk3Aj72t_I&ab_channel=%F0%9D%94%92%F0%9D% 94%A9%F0%9D%94%A1%E2%84%AD%F0%9D%94%B2%F0%9D%94%AF %F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%AC%F0%9D%94%B0%26%F0%9D%94%8 4%F0%9D%94%AB%F0%9D%94%B1%F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%AE% F0%9D%94%B2%F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%B1%F0%9D%94%A6%F0 %9D%94%A2%F0%9D%94%B0

It is computer generated and very atmospheric, and I can point out a few interesting scenes around the 29 minute mark.
The Long incident is depicted as her seeing a single couple in a deserted street. When Amelia Richardson was asked why she hadn't heard anyone in the passage that morning she made it clear that the street was filled with noise and bustle due to market day. John Richardson said he only checked the lock on market day because of the number of people in the street, and Long herself stated that there were many couples there on those market mornings.

The depiction of Richardson shows how easily he might have seen the lock with only a quick glance from the top of the steps, as was his stated practice. It also shows him sitting down and scraping a knife on the outside of his boot. It can be seen how the door may have blocked his view. Even more so had he been turned more to his right in the direction of the cellar.

The video shows a quick repair to the outside of his boot, but he made it clear that the problem was that the leather on the INSIDE was hurting his toe. I have a pair of Kodiak boots that extend above the ankle similar to this diagram:



Even with the boot mostly unlaced, the inside toe of the boot is not visible due to the tongue. Any leather trimming would need to be done by working one hand, with the knife, around the instep and cutting by feel while manoeuvring the knife. Richardson claimed that he went down the passage, opened the door, checked the lock and sat on the step. He then unlaced the offending boot, cut some leather from the inside of the toe with a blunt broken dessert knife, put the boot back on and re-laced it, and left to go to work, all in "About a minute and a half, or two minutes at the outside". I don't buy it.

Later in the video there is quite a good depiction of the Schwartz incident.

There is a second video in the series here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RncOVS1-8t8&ab_channel=%F0%9D%94%92%F0%9D%94%A9%F0%9D%94%A 1%E2%84%AD%F0%9D%94%B2%F0%9D%94%AF%F0%9D%94%A6%F0% 9D%94%AC%F0%9D%94%B0%26%F0%9D%94%84%F0%9D%94%AB%F0 %9D%94%B1%F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%AE%F0%9D%94%B2%F0%9 D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%B1%F0%9D%94%A6%F0%9D%94%A2%F0%9D% 94%B0

Cheers, George